Tuesday, May 11, 2010

The metadata of memories

I was meaning to write a post yesterday. I didn't manage to. After getting home I was suddenly exhausted and took a 4 hour nap. I think that tonight I will try to stay awake and not nap, when I do go to sleep I shall sleep earlier, and hopefully aim to wake up earlier.

Lately, I've gotten a lot of memories. Often specific memories have a layer below the event, almost like metadata on mp3 files. The metadata tends to be the recieved interpretation and reaction of that event. When I recall the time that the psychiatrist office put me on hold but I overheard their conversation on hold as they mentioned pretty mean things about me; I get a wave of emotion and overwhelming feelings identical to how I used to feel about it.

Why have I gotten these memories? Why do they keep popping up? Often, triggers seem to happen as a result of something that may give a reminder or resemblance of a past event which causes upset or some kind of distress.

When I was napping yesterday, I seemed to get very vivid and distressing nightmares. Combined with a distinct lack of energy, andfeeling fat; my mood has been challenging.

Today I have been upset. The guy at reed told me two things:

1. I've completed my 165 required hours
2. I can't go yet, I need to complete 192 hours; that makes a further 27 hours required.

The advisor said that I needed to do cold calling and he said he expected me to get a job by now. The advisor did not say this in a bad way but he said something seemed to be up because I've put a lot of effort in and there's been little return in the way of interview invites. The next few stages of the REED time will involve:

1. Make a list of 60 contacts to cold call
2. Prepare a script
3. Cold call
4. Further 'advice' to help me into a job.

I think that the advisor is trying to get me into a job and in a really aggressive way. I feel quite down and stressed and 'mia' is crawling behind my back from all of the disappointment and lack of sense of control that I have.

I tried with a great amount of effort and mental agony to make a list to cold call people. I got about 12 or so organisations. The goal was 30. I hate how my situation is. Even if I do get the PhD placement, I do not think that it will answer all of my problems. I feel like I am losing control.

I have two ways, as I see it, in which I can react.

1. Distressed perseverence, like the time back in september 2008 when I failed an MA essay and my heart shattered. I was so utterly distressed because Antonia was playing this polyamorous bullshit and was too busy with someone else.

2. Hide away in a state of depressed retreat

Maybe there's a third way. I see those two methods only as options because those are the ways I have reacted in the past. I am being challenged by life, and it is not easy. I feel challenged to the core of my being. My whole time at REED has enacted one challenge after another; some I've overcome with relative ease, others less easy. However, this present week promises very great challenges. I felt earlier today that the challenge was so great that I'd not be able to meet it.

Lemma

Lets talk about positives. This weekend past I met up with friends. I also applied to a shitload of jobs. I also organised to start volunteering on friday. I bought some wax, laxatives, painkillers and allergy/hayfever medications today and on thursday I'll get some money pumped into my account.

I have a rejection to look for from belgium and a couple dozen possible positives from the job hunt front.

Somehow the positives dont seem so great. If my mood didn't change so radically today, I would have said that there was a part of me that was changing inside. A part of me was returning to the socially acceptable and work thirsty potential member of the industrial workforce, instead of a sense of awkward and flawed limbo.

I want to communicate to this blog that I am not always feeling down all the time. At the moment I feel a sense of distress that is more akin to the upset and frustration and lack of control that mia loves to get to me through.

I had mia on my back all of today. It has been hard to stave her away. I found great comfort in eating bacon rasher crisps from M&S. I wish that the M&S didn't close down near the house. It's a fucking budget clothes store now.

If I were thin I'd be happy.

Earlier I thought to myself something horrible. I thought to myself: I'd rather be thin than happy. I'm neither at the moment. If I purged myself to thinness I wouldn't make a loss.

I miss Antonia. I'm trying to get on with my life. Trying.

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